Darling,Shadow
by Rouge the theif
Summary: Prof. Gerald tells shadow he needs a wife for mysterious reasons...read and review and i will post more!have any couple stories you would want to see? email me.
1. Prologue

Darling, Shadow 

Maria Robotnik was invisible.

As a child in the grim station of ARK, she had learned her lessons well. In a family of thirteen, the squeaking wheel got back handed and burdened with extra chores. In any forest, it was the tallest tree that suffered the lightning. So Maria, early on, had decided to be a shrub. Under bleak space skies, in her somber wools, Maria Robotnik was barely distinguishable. She was always busying herself since her grandfather, her only family member left, was busy working on something or another. What she didn't know was Gerald was working on something that would change her life…..


	2. Shadow

Chapter One ( a couple of months later ) 

"You need a wife."

"That's impossible, professor. Out of the question."

Gerald leaned back in his chair. He raised both hands to knead his throbbing temples, then closed his eyes a moment, wishing-praying, actually- that when he opened them again both the headache and the non-emotional hedgehog would be gone. But-damn it- they weren't. The nagging pain was still there, and so was his best and greatest creation. The hedgehog was a headache in form, slanted back now with his arms crossed and his hover shoes up on a desk. " I don't need a wife, professor," Shadow said again, in that voice that said don't you dare argue with me. The founder of the world's largest space colony sighed as he continued to massage his forehead. "You should get feelings. Damn it. You've been alone since I created you. It's the way you wanted it. But you need emotions."

"I don't think so."

Something in the hedgehog's tone made Gerald lean forward. Shadow the hedgehog made demands. He didn't plead. But now there seemed to be a tentative note playing just beneath the usual bravado.

"If it were possible," Shadow said. "But it's not. Right now all your female scientist are assigned. There's no one—"

Gerald cut him off, jerking his thumb toward the closed office door. "There's a roomful of females out there, and you bloody well know it."

"Secretaries." Shadow dismissed them with a wave of his hand. "They always gather when I come. You know that. They flock like silly pigeons at a popcorn festival."

"Surely one of them—"

"No." Shadow banged his fist on the desk. "Absolutely not. They're clerks, not worth it."

"They're women for god's sake. That qualifies any one of them to play the part of your wife. "

"I understand that, but…"

"What you need to understand friend." As Gerald's voice lowered, his eyes lifted slowly to meet Shadow straight on. Gray to Gray. Steel to stone. There was a spark. And then it died. "You can't do it alone. Not this time."

Suddenly shadow did understand. He understood all to well, and Gerald's voice softened considerably. "Perhaps I should assign someone else…"

"No." In one swift movement Shadow's shoes hit the floor and he was out his chair, even though he was small, it was like he was towering over Gerald. "She's mine. If anybody's going to bring Majesta down, professor, it's going to be me. Nobody else, Me. You owe me that, damn it."

Gerald didn't answer for a moment. He studied his folded hands, then let his eyes drift closed. When he spoke, it was quietly, with calm deliberation. "The women did you considerable damage, Shadow. More than I had imagined."

"I'm over it," came the terse reply.

"And the depression?"

"That, too. It's been five months." Shadow yanked his watch from his wrist and snapped it open. "Five months. Hell, its been a hundred twenty-two days, ten hours and thirty-seven minutes."


	3. maria

Maria 

The commotion down the hall had drawn Maria Robotnik to the door of the experiment room. She stood there now, shaking her head and watching two more scientists as they attempted to enter Shadow the Hedgehog's room simultaneously. After a collusion course of shoulders, a collapse of crinolines and a good deal of elbowing and hissing, the women somehow managed to squeeze through to join the throng already inside.

It didn't take a lawyer or spy to figure out what was happening. He was back. It happened once or twice a year. The arrival and departure of Shadow the Hedgehog sent the entire office into a tizzy, a frenzy of swishing skirts and sighs and giggles. Last spring, someone had broken an ankle racing down the hall. All for a glimpse of Shadow the Hedgehog. All for the sake of a fluttering heart. A fleeting sigh.

Such silliness.

It wasn't that she was immune, Maria thought as she made her way to the window. That wasn't the case at all. It was rather that she didn't believe in expending useless emotions. She wasn't the sort of person who wasted on dreams. Not that she had any. But if she had…

She gave a little shrug, and was looking out the window when the door of Gerald Robotnik's opened. There was a last moment jostling in the laboratory, a flurry of movement followed by a communal sigh that dwindled to breathless hush as Gerald's most illustrious experiment appeared.

Maria's hand halted in midair. Her heart, like countless others in the room, gathered speed, bounded in her throat and then plummeted to the pit of her stomach.

Shadow the Hedgehog was the most handsome thing in the world. From his red striped black fur to his hover shoes.

"well?" Gerald Robotnik stood beside Shadow. He spoke with a hushed tone of a conspirator. "that's a lot of them. A bevy, if you will. Take your pick, Shadow. And be quick about it. I'd like to get back to business."

"It doesn't matter." Shadow shifted his stance and crossed his arms, surveying the roomful of women. "I'll need her for a month only. That's it. What about her?"

"Her?"


End file.
